Shows / Front Row
Episodes
- Front Row
Anything Goes, Live arts venues under Omicron, The Princess Bride
Broadway star Sutton Foster and director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall talk to Samira Ahmed about staging the musical Anything Goes, one of the hottest…
- Front Row
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kehinde Wiley, Christmas book gifts
Maggie Gyllenhaal discusses her new film The Lost Daughter, an adaptation of the novel by Elena Ferrante. Gyllenhaal has written the film and it is her…
- Front Row
Don't Look Up, Around the World in 80 Days, Cutting It Fine
Jonathan Freedland, Sarah Churchwell and Leila Latif review Adam McKay's satire Don't Look Up, with a stellar cast including Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo…
- Front Row
Postcard from Scarborough, Derek Jarman Protest!, Benjamin Cleary
A major retrospective of Derek Jarman’s work, Protest!, opens at the Manchester Art Gallery this week. One of the most influential figures in 20th century…
- Front Row
Colm Tóibín
Colm Tóibín on winning the David Cohen prize, the sudden rise in Covid-19 related theatre closures and a seasonal dance round-up with Sarah Crompton.
- Front Row
Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Sarah Phelps, puppetry on stage
Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, which transforms a West End theatre into a Berlin night club in the late 1920s, stars Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee and Jessie…
- Front Row
Cat Power performs live. Amanda Gorman poetry, Sex And The City follow up and Drive My Car reviewed
What makes a good cover version? And is it an underrated musical genre? American singer-songwriter and queen of the cover-version Cat Power AKA Chan Marshall…
- Front Row
Musician Carwyn Ellis performs; The Rules of Art? exhibition; filmmaker Rosemary Baker; Port Talbot postcard
Front Row comes from Cardiff this evening. Joining presenter Huw Stephens to play live in the studio is Welsh musician Carwyn Ellis, who has been collaborating…
- Front Row
Steven Spielberg, Working Class Heritage, Will Sharpe
Samira talks to Steven Spielberg about his new version of the musical West Side Story, along with Ariana DeBose who plays Anita.Following the recent demolition…
- Front Row
Playwright James Graham on Best of Enemies; Lamb film review; The Belarus Free Theatre; remembering actor Antony Sher
Britain’s foremost writer of political drama, James Graham, has written a new play ‘Best of Enemies’, about the television debates in the US in 1968 between…
- Front Row
The Hand of God and Dürer exhibition reviewed, Aaron Sorkin on Lucille Ball
Paolo Sorrentino’s film The Great Beauty won an Oscar. Now he has returned to his home city of Naples to make a film based on his own autobiography, The Hand…
- Front Row
The 2021 Turner Prize Ceremony
Front Row is live from the 2021 Turner Prize Ceremony at Coventry Cathedral. Samira Ahmed hears from Turner Prize judges actor Russell Tovey and curator Zoe…
- Front Row
The Parthenon Marbles; Get Back documentary review; Turner Prize nominees Project Artworks; the literary canon
As the debate over the Parthenon Marbles has resurfaced in recent weeks, we take a deep dive into this decades old dispute. Alexander Herman, Assistant…
- Front Row
Kelly Lee Owens, Stephen Sondheim, Rowan Williams, Black Obsidian Sound System
The electronic musician Kelly Lee Owens won this year’s Welsh Music Prize for her album Inner Song. She tells Samira Ahmed about her inspiration - and her…
- Front Row
House of Gucci, Adele's 30 and The Every by Dave Eggers
The designer Henry Holland and writers Stephanie Merritt and Tahmima Anam review House of Gucci, The Every by Dave Eggers and Adele's new album 30.In the run…
- Front Row
Suzanne Lacy, Bishop Auckland, Silent Night
As her first major retrospective in the UK opens in Manchester, the distinguished American artist Suzanne Lacy discusses a career which has seen her standing…
- Front Row
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Turner Prize nominees Gentle / Radical, Costa Book Awards
During the pandemic Andrew Lloyd Webber has been more of a campaigner than a composer. He talks to Samira Ahmed how to keep theatres open now, taking his show…
- Front Row
The Power of the Dog film review; Turner Prize nominees Cooking Sections; South African literature today
Jane Campion is famous for The Piano and a baby grand plays a crucial role in her new film The Power of the Dog, in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays a heavy…
- Front Row
King Richard, Wheel of Time and new Zadie Smith play reviewed, Playwright Moira Buffini
New movie King Richard stars Will Smith and focuses on the father of Venus and Serena Williams. The Wife of Willesden is the first play by Zadie Smith. And…
- Front Row
Ralph Fiennes on Four Quartets, Songlines exhibition, art postcard from Plymouth
‘A spiritual enquiry into what it is to be human’ is how Ralph Fiennes describes T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. On the eve of the opening in the West End he…
- Front Row
Céline Sciamma on her film Petite Maman, author Sarah Moss on The Fell, diversity in folk arts
Céline Sciamma’s last film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, won awards worldwide after its release in 2019. Now the French filmmaker is back with Petite Maman – a…
- Front Row
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Climate Fiction, Kayleigh Llewellyn
Lin-Manuel Miranda makes his debut as film director with a cinematic retelling of the stage musical - tick, tick…Boom! The film stars Andrew Garfield as a…
- Front Row
Tori Amos performs, The Courtauld Gallery reopening and Dopesick series reviewed, Heidi Stephens live blogs
Tori Amos plays live and tells presenter Tom Sutcliffe about going from rock bottom to renewal in her lockdown album conceived on the Cornish coast, Ocean to…
- Front Row
Art in Shetland, Timothy Ogene, Sharon Heal and Paul McCartney
For many years Shetlanders with ambitions to become artists had to leave to train and work. Not any longer, and young artists are also returning to the…
- Front Row
Venice and climate change, the story that inspired Dostoevsky, Dean Stockwell remembered
The unique cultural heritage of Venice is under threat from increasingly frequent flooding and rising sea levels. Anna Somers Cocks OBE, founding editor of the…
- Front Row
Jeymes Samuel on The Harder They Fall, author Sofi Oksanen, John Gilchrist of UK Theatre, Paul McCartney
British filmmaker, singer-songwriter and music producer Jeymes Samuel AKA The Bullitts discusses his new film The Harder They Fall.Finnish-Estonian author Sofi…
- Front Row
Spencer, Alan Cumming and Paul McCartney
Alan Cumming discusses his autobiography, Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life. This volume chronicles some of his career highs after Hollywood came…
- Front Row
The 2021 Booker Prize Ceremony
Shortlisted authors Anuk Arudpragasam, Damon Galgut, Patricia Lockwood, Nadifa Mohamed, Richard Powers and Maggie Shipstead join Samira Ahmed live in…
- Front Row
Little Amal, Anne Carson, Paul McCartney and The National Trust
Little Amal, a giant puppet of a refugee girl, will complete her epic journey from Gaziantep on the Turkey/Syria border to Manchester tomorrow. Theatre…
- Front Row
Armando Iannucci, Booker shortlisted author Maggie Shipstead, Paul McCartney on Penny Lane
Meet the anagrammatical Orbis Rex, Queen Dido, Blind Dom’nic, as they battle a wet and withered bat from Wuhan in Front Row as Armando Iannucci, Samira Ahmed’s…
- Front Row
Passing film, Colin in Black and White, Booker Prize book group on Bewilderment, Paul McCartney
Critics Michael Donkor and Jan Asante review actor Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut feature film Passing and the series Colin in Black and White, about former…
- Front Row
The reopening of the Hall for Cornwall, Paul McCartney on Eleanor Rigby and Booker Prize nominated author Nadifa Mohamed
Front Row visits Truro to report on the re-opening of the Hall for Cornwall after a 3 year, £26million refurbishment. The new 1300 auditorium complements the…
- Front Row
Booker shortlisted novelist Patricia Lockwood, Science Museum director Ian Blatchford, Paul McCartney
Patricia Lockwood is the latest author to join our Booker Prize Book Groups. Three listeners will ask her about No One Is Talking About This, a novel that’s…
- Front Row
Paul McCartney, Paul Muldoon, Booker Prize Book Group on The Promise
In the first instalment of our new series, Inside the Songs, Paul McCartney talks about his life and song-writing through the prism of ten key lyrics…
- Front Row
Booker Prize Book Group: Anuk Arudpragasam on A Passage North
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
- Front Row
Bradford Postcard; Ron’s Gone Wrong; Re-directing a play
Producer-director Sarah Smith made her animation debut with the festive favourite, Arthur Christmas. Ten years on she’s back with Ron’s Gone Wrong, a…
- Front Row
BBC National Short Story Award and BBC Young Writers' Award winners
We announce the winners of the BBC National Short Story Award 2021 and the BBC Young Writers' Award 2021. Kirsty Lang is joined for the show by National Short…
- Front Row
Arinzé Kene on playing Bob Marley; Clare Norburn sings John Dowland; the first Working Class Writers Festival
Arinzé Kene talks to Samira Ahmed about playing Bob Marley in the new musical Get Up, StandUp!Singer Clare Norburn is live in the studio to perform a piece by…
- Front Row
The RIBA Stirling Prize for architecture, Succession, John Le Carré’s final novel, The London Film Festival
Front Row goes live to Coventry to announce the winner of the 2021 Riba Stirling Prize and discuss the shortlist with BBC Arts and Media correspondent David…
- Front Row
Theatre director Emma Jordan, Omagh's Ulster American Folk Park and Ridley Scott
Theatre director Emma Jordan discusses The Border Game, a new play to mark 100 years of the Irish border. We hear from Omagh in County Tyrone as reporter Freya…
- Front Row
Suzan-Lori Parks, Owen Sheers, stolen artefacts and the portrayal of scientists
Suzan-Lori Parks, the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on her play White Noise, which has its the UK premier tonight. Life is…
- Front Row
Joan Collins, Armistead Maupin and Verbatim Theatre
Joan Collins discusses her memoir My Unapologetic Diaries.Tales of the City author and activist Armistead Maupin on his national tour and why he has moved from…
- Front Row
Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, Cush Jumbo's Hamlet, Poet Laureate Simon Armitage
Cush Jumbo’s long-awaited performance as Hamlet and debbie tucker green’s film ear for eye come under the critical gaze of Ekow Eshun, Vanessa Kisuule and…
- Front Row
The Arts in Aberystwyth, The Boy with Two Hearts in Cardiff and Welsh film director Craig Roberts
Broadcaster Huw Stephens sends an audio postcard from Aberystwyth, the small seaside town with the big arts centre mounting exhibitions and concerts, the…
- Front Row
Wole Soyinka, post-pandemic theatre, Michael Winterbottom
Wole Soyinka, the first African writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells Samira Ahmed about what impelled him to write his first new novel in five…
- Front Row
Hilary Mantel, Lianne La Havas, Candice Carty Williams, Kieran Hurley
In tonight's new look, 45 minute long Front Row...Hilary Mantel talks about turning her 874 page novel, The Mirror and the Light, the third volume in her…
- Front Row
No Time To Die, Soul Train, Karl Ove Knausgaard
The new 007 film No Time To Die has had its release pushed back and back and back due to Covid. But now it’s finally here with Daniel Craig playing James Bond…
- Front Row
Dave Grohl, Jimmy Savile
Widely known as the nicest guy in rock, Dave Grohl has written a memoir ‘The Storyteller’ documenting his life in the rock and roll business, from early days…
- Front Row
David Chase, Laura Lomas, Betty Campbell statue
American screenwriter, show-runner, director, and producer David Chase is best known for writing and producing the HBO drama The Sopranos which aired for six…
- Front Row
Comedian Njambi McGrath, Turner Prize shortlist review, 25 Years of Buena Vista Social Club
Kenyan British Comedian Njambi McGrath’s work focuses on identity politics, Brexit, colonialism, and race. She joins Kirsty to discuss her 2019 show…
- Front Row
Arthur C. Clarke Award winner, K-pop band BTS address the UN and new film, The Man Who Sold His Skin
Front Row announces this year’s winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction and Samira Ahmed interviews the winner. They are joined by Clarke…
- Front Row
Dame Elizabeth Blackadder, Megan Swann, Richard Smyth, The Story of Looking.
Megan Swann is the first ever female President of The Magic Circle, and the youngest ever President at just 28 years old. She tells Tom how she got into magic…
- Front Row
The Contains Strong Language Festival
On 6 October 1941 “The Coventry Telegraph” reported that women of Coventry had sent a message of support to the women of Stalingrad. And so began a…
- Front Row
Spiers and Boden, music streaming economics, Calvin Kasulke, Danny Rhodes
There's some excitement in the world of English traditional music: Spiers and Boden have reunited, recorded a new album and are embarking on a month long tour…
- Front Row
We announce the winner of the 2021 Art Fund Museum of the Year
We announce the winner of the 2021 Art Fund Museum of the Year, the world’s largest museum prize. Front Row broadcasts a special programme from London's…
- Front Row
Everybody's Talking about Jamie, Rory Gleeson, Grinling Gibbons Exhibition
Everybody’s Talking about Jamie is a feature film based on the stage musical of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the BBC Three documentary Jamie…
- Front Row
Peter Brathwaite, Indecent play review, Small Bells Ring story barge, Lucy Caldwell
Visible Skin: Rediscovering the Renaissance through Black Portraiture is a new outdoor exhibition across King’s College London’s Strand Campus, showcasing…
- Front Row
Peaceophobia, Help Review, Georgina Harding, Kurt Elling
If you go down to the Oastler Centre carpark in Bradford over the next few days, you’re sure of a big surprise because this derelict multi-storey is the venue…
- Front Row
Anuradha Roy, Propaganda ceramics, British Ceramics Biennial, a new Culture Secretary
Award-winning author Anuradha Roy crafts pots as well as prose. She joins us live from India to discuss the fusion of ceramics and storytelling, pottery and…
- Front Row
Julian Clary, Antonio Pappano, Booker Prize shortlist
The role of Norman, the longsuffering, waspish eponymous dresser in Ronald Harwood's 1980 play, might have been written for Julian Clary. It's about a touring…